Gone to Ground (32 page)

Will nodded. "Something made him change his mind sharpish and I doubt it was a change of heart."

The rain was falling more steadily now and Will got to his feet. "We should be heading back inside."

"If even half of this is true," Helen said. "If this is the way Prince operates, the way he's made his money, it's no wonder he doesn't welcome anyone coming sniffing round, asking questions."

"Like Stephen Bryan?"

"Yes."

"Surely, the kind of questions he would have been asking, they wouldn't have been anything to do with Prince's business?"

"You wouldn't have thought so. But maybe Prince reckons it's safer to keep everyone at arm's length as a matter of principle. Or maybe he's afraid if too many people start digging around, sooner or later, they're going to find out where the bodies are buried."

"You're speaking metaphorically?"

Helen smiled. "For now."

Will unzipped his waterproof jacket and placed it around Helen's shoulders and they hurried out of the rain.

64.

EXT. COAST ROAD. DAY

RUBY and PHILIP are driving along the coast road, RUBY at the wheel.

This is the same stretch of road that we have seen in the opening scenes, but now everything is sunlit, the car windows are wound down and RUBY's hair is blowing in the wind, and both she and PHILIP look happy.

At the approach to a bend in the road, RUBY slows the car to a halt and pulls over onto the grass verge. They get out and walk hand in hand to the edge of the cliff and stand there, looking down at the waves churning against the rocks below.

PHILIP
It's beautiful.
(Turning to face her)
Wild but beautiful.

RUBY seizes hold of him and kisses him, and, as they embrace, the camera cranes up then angles down beyond them to the crashing waves.

LESLEY, WHO FOR MOST OF HER ADULT LIFE HAD BEEN untroubled by dreams, woke again in the small hours, her skin clammy with sweat. When she tried to ease her T-shirt up over her head, it stuck to her skin and she had to wriggle then tug it free. Sodden, she dumped it in the washing basket and, running barely warm water into the sink, washed herself with the aid of a flannel. Dry, she pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved cotton top before setting the kettle to boil.

Just one or two of the apartment windows she could see had lights showing behind their blinds, the remainder shrouded in darkness. Through a gap between the buildings, she could just see the southern end of St. Mary's Church outlined against the dull orange-yellow light of the city beyond.

Tea made, she picked up a book and switched on the radio.

Through the Night
on Radio 3.

She was reading one of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency stories she'd picked up in the Oxfam shop.
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies.
Several people at work had recommended them and she'd thought she'd give them a try. Somehow, buying a book set in Botswana in an Oxfam shop, among all the Fair Trade this and that, had seemed particularly appropriate.

And it was pleasant, quietly amusing: reading about these two African ladies who spent their time, between eating doughnuts and drinking copious cups of tea, solving small mysteries and generally smoothing over the lives of those around them. Charming, Lesley thought. Soothing.

If only life were like that. Maybe it had been once.

Well, here she was drinking tea after all. And in those hours before the day had really started, couldn't she imagine that with the dawn everything would fall back into place, questions answered, mysteries solved?

In the place of tinkly piano from the radio—or had it been harpsichord?—there was something she recognized. Those short jittery phrases from the strings before they were answered by the horns, the music rising in volume as it swirled toward the end of that first short section, when the orchestra fell away and the soloist entered, sure-footed yet just so slightly ponderous—Mozart's Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra in B flat major, K. 191.

When Stephen had been sixteen, his O level year, he had suddenly befriended a boy in the year above him, the lower sixth. A crush, Lesley realized later. And this boy had played in the school orchestra, the woodwind section, bassoon. Not just the school orchestra, the county one as well. Hadn't he had an audition for the National Youth Orchestra, too? She couldn't recall. But what she did remember was going with Stephen to hear him play the Mozart concerto in a church somewhere in Leicester. She remembered the absolute concentration on Stephen's face, the way his hands had gripped his legs at the knee. She remembered his breathing; she could hear it now, below the music, as she had heard it then, the Allegro coming to an end.

Jumping up, she snapped off the radio.

She was sweating again, but this was something different. Her throat was dry and her skin prickled. She could listen to that music again and again, buy a CD of it and play it endlessly, just as Stephen had done when the boy had transferred to the Northern College of Music in Manchester and Stephen had never heard from him nor seen him again.

But, other than in her imagination, she could not hear Stephen breathe. Stephen was dead, and she still didn't know how or why. And though Helen Walker had promised she would alert her colleagues, do what she could, neither did the police.

Outside, the first light was slowly steeping into the sky.

The further she drove into the fens that afternoon, the more distance between herself and the horizon there seemed to be, as if the earth were curving away from her grasp. At intervals, the sun broke through the otherwise omnipresent gray and spun the fields silver at a touch.

Having been there before didn't prevent her from getting lost; twice she pulled in at the side of the road and struggled to compare her map with the expanse around her, barely broken by house or tree.

Somehow, she found herself approaching from the opposite direction and, surprised, she slowed to a halt and tried again to get her bearings. Ahead of her, on the narrow strip of road, a crow was pecking at something on the surface, tearing at it with its beak. Only when she was a car's length away did it rise with a brusque squawk and an easy flap of wings.

Lesley parked on the rough triangle of grass in front of the gate and, after only a moment's hesitation, activated the mechanism that would allow her through onto the path. There was a tiny remote camera that she hadn't noticed previously, attached to a post farther back along the fence.

Only the Jaguar was present this time in the yard, shining and buffed; no other vehicles, no bicycle leaning against the wall. A few tea towels on a washing line aside, there were no signs of life at all.

She knocked at the same door as before and waited: nothing happened. For a moment, she looked up into the lens of the camera angling down. She knocked again and listened, her ear close to the wooden panel. Nothing stirred.

When she called out, her voice came back strangely flat. Everything around her was silent, except for the distant mithering of the birds. Through the kitchen window she could see cups and plates left to drain beside the sink. Fruit in a bowl. The same washing-up liquid she used herself.

Stepping back, she looked up toward the upstairs windows, but this time there was no one, no face peering down. Through the slats of the first barn she could see tools and boxes, logs stacked against one wall; in the second, larger barn a small boat rested on a trailer, partly covered by tarpaulin. More logs were stacked against the back wall of the house itself, wood chips on the ground.

She walked down through the orchard, between apple trees that were yet to come into blossom. Two taller pear trees stood over toward the hedge dividing the garden from the adjacent field. How far could you walk, Lesley wondered, without coming across another house, another person?

And then she saw her, just a shape and little more. Sitting low down against the field edge, some distance away. Lesley called a greeting and for a moment the face turned toward her, before looking away. It could be anyone, she thought, a traveler perhaps, someone out for a walk, taking a rest.

She squeezed through the hedge and began to walk around the curve of grass that marked the field end, the grass itself slippery and the ground damp beneath her feet.

When she was little more than twenty metres off, the woman slowly turned her head toward her and Lesley could see the face was the same one she had seen up at the window, the same lank, dark hair, the same pale, narrow features.

Lesley raised a hand in greeting and the face turned away.

In the distance, Lesley could hear now the rough chatter of a tractor and, following the sound, could see it moving across a field to the west.

The woman, she saw now, was resting on her haunches, the folds of the dress she was wearing trailing on the ground and flecked quite liberally with mud. The dress had once been green, dark green, and was decked out here and there with lace. Below the capped sleeves, her arms were bare, the flesh loose and the skin, save from a garland of soft brown blotches, was paler than that of her face. She had a pair of oversize men's shoes, unlaced, on her feet. Her hair, Lesley could now see, was knotted and unkempt.

Lesley bent down toward her. "Hello," she said. "I'm Lesley."

A slight movement of the head, but nothing more.

"I think you must be Lily. Is that right?"

Lily began to cry.

"It's all right," Lesley said. "Nothing's going to happen. I just saw you sitting here, from the garden. I thought you might like some company."

Lily picked a small gray stone from the soil, examined it in the palm of her hand, then let it fall. "Are you the nurse?" she said. "The new nurse?"

"No." Easing herself down, Lesley sat beside her, their arms just touching.

"The last one," Lily said, "she stole from me, you know. From my purse. All the money I'd saved." She glanced across her shoulder, past Lesley and back toward the house. "The money for my ticket. All I had. I told them and that's why they fired her. That Mrs. Thingumajig." A glimmer of amusement played in Lily's eyes. "Threw her out on her arse, that's what they did. Out on her bony arse."

"Mrs. Thingumajig," said Lesley, "that's the housekeeper?"

Lily looked at her. "She's the witch."

"You don't like her."

"Oh..." Head to one side, Lily wafted her hand through the air. "She's not as bad as some. She doesn't hurt me, not like some. They used to beat me, you know? Pull out my hair."

"Surely not."

"In those other places, not here. Howard wouldn't let them. He took me away. I told him what they were doing and he took me away. Brought me home, here." Her hand rested for a moment on Lesley's arm. "He loves me, you know? Looks after me."

The hand fell away and she leaned backward, mouth partly open, looking up at the sky.

"Do you want to go back?" Lesley asked. "To the house? I'll walk with you, if you like."

"I've seen you before," Lily said. "You were here, once before."

"That's right. I came to see you."

"No." Lily shook her head. "No one ever comes to see me. Howard says it's not good for me. And the witch, she sends them away."

"My brother," Lesley said, "Stephen. It's possible he might have come to see you. A little while ago. He wanted to talk to you."

"Howard says..."

"He was writing a book and he wanted to ask you some questions."

"A book?"

"Yes. About Stella."

"About my mother?"

"No, your aunt. Stella's your aunt."

"Oh, yes, of course. I know. Irene, that's my mother. I should know my own mother." Lily reached out and patted her hand. "You'll have to excuse me, I get confused. Everyone says so." She tapped the side of her head and smiled. "Confused."

"Perhaps you'd like to talk to me?" Lesley said. "About your aunt?"

"She died," Lily said.

"Yes, I know."

"She died."

Lesley could see the housekeeper, still wearing her top coat, stepping through the gap in the hedge and hurrying toward them.

"Why don't you let me help you up?" Lesley said, taking hold of Lily's hand. "It's probably not good for you, sitting here all this time."

Lily looked at her doubtfully, then at the housekeeper, closing on them fast.

"Don't let her..." Lily said.

"It's all right."

"Don't let her hit me."

"Mrs. Prince," the housekeeper called.

"I'm sure she won't hit you," Lesley said.

"Mrs. Prince. What do you think you are doing? You must come inside. And you," she said to Lesley, "you are the person from the radio. A reporter. What are you doing here?"

"I saw Lily out here," Lesley said. "And there didn't seem to be anybody at the house. I just came to make sure she was all right."

"She is fine," the woman said, edging Lesley aside. "Come along, Mrs. Prince. You will come with me." Reaching down, she lifted Lily to her feet as if she were made from paper and straw. "Look at your lovely dress, the state it is in. We will have to wash it carefully, by hand. You can help me if you wish."

"Yes," Lily said. "Yes." She seemed to have forgotten anyone else was there.

"You must go now," the housekeeper said to Lesley. "It is not good for you to be here. Please go."

"Mrs. Prince and I, I thought we might have a little talk."

The housekeeper's voice was firm. "Mr. Prince, he will be home soon." She glanced back at Lily. "For her sake, you should not be here when he comes."

The rain that had threatened on and off all day began to fall when Lesley was still twenty miles from home. Small drops at first, spotted here and there across the windshield, gradually accelerating into long slanting lines which swerved across the front of the car and left the surface of the road awash within moments.

Lesley slowed her speed, set the wipers to double speed, and peered through the gloom.

Only ten minutes later, the rain had ceased, the vast bulwark of black cloud diminished, and, ahead of her, a rainbow rose over the city, bathing it in light.